Police began its first indefinite campaign targeting illegal parking vehicles across the city today in an attempt to ease traffic congestion, but some have said the issue goes beyond badly behaved drivers.
Starting today, police officers will issue tickets to drivers without warning once their vehicles are found parking, loading, unloading, stopping, waiting, picking up passengers or alighting at restricted zones like bus stops and no-stopping zones. Vehicles may be towed if necessary.
The operation, codename “Move-Sky”, will target traffic blackspots including shopping areas in Causeway Bay and commercial and dining areas in Wan Chai — such as Lockhart Road, Jaffe Road, and Happy Valley — Superintendent Eric Tsang told HK01.
Unlike previous campaigns, this is the first time police have launched such an operation without setting a specific duration. Speaking to Commercial Radio today, Senior Superintendent Luke Yuen said police had carried out six similar operations in the past year, each of which only lasted for one week. During the weeklong campaigns, he said, officers gave out an average of 5,000 tickets, roughly 500 to 1,000 more than usual.
In the first half of 2017, police have given out around 830,000 tickets to drivers for congestion-related traffic offences, a 13 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
Operation Move-Sky has drawn both praise and criticism from the public, with some blaming the government’s consistent reduction of public parking spaces on top of Hong Kong’s already severe parking space shortage for rampant illegal parking.
Since 2013, three government-owned public car parks — the Tsuen Wan Transport Complex Car Park, Tsim Sha Tsui’s Middle Road Multi-storey Car Park, and the Murray Road Car Park in Central — have been closed for redevelopment, according to the Transport Department.
In late May, the government submitted a proposal to LegCo increase parking fines by 25 percent, from HKD320 for illegal parking and HKD450 for road offences, to HKD400 and 560, respectively. If approved, the changes would take place by June 1, 2018, at the earliest.
